Shadowlands
by Sakon76
Summary: Jack has a favor to ask of Death.
1. Deathly Desires

**Shadowlands  
Part 1: Deathly Desires**  
by K. Stonham  
first released 18th December, 2012

December, 2017

Jack had met Mort before. Of course he had; people die in winter, sometimes out in the icy wastes, caught in a blizzard. Which wasn't always Jack's fault, but sometimes it had been. And unable to help the stranded individuals, unable to even _touch_ them, the only thing Jack had ever been able to do was stay with them until death came.

So, he'd met Mort plenty of times, and heard more about her through the immortals' gossip vine. Little things like her weird predeliction for playing games in certain circumstances.

It had never before occurred to Jack that Mort must have been present at his own death, nor that the Man in the Moon made a... deal? Arrangement? Something of the sort, anyway, that allowed for Jack to stay out of the afterlife, and become a spirit on Earth.

Now, though, Jack was thinking on that, and thinking hard. He didn't know the details, of course, and was pretty sure Manny wouldn't tell him if he asked. The other Guardians, Jack thought, didn't really have anything of the sort. No hard stop, no sharp delineation between before and after, alive and spirit. He had the impression that their transformations into immortals were something more gradual, perhaps even something that had gone unnoticed for years after it happened.

So he wasn't sure if any of them even really knew Death. Christmas and Easter, they wouldn't really see children dying, would they? Especially not Bunny. Sandman... well, there were so many dreamers; did Sandy count them all? Toothiana was the most likely to know Death, unless she really did keep the teeth of dead children forever, which Jack thought would be a little creepy. But then he'd never quite understood Tooth's obsession with teeth. Especially not her obsession with his, which she was never going to get to collect since they were all permanent teeth.

The thing was, though, even though Jack _knew_ Death, he didn't know how to find her. He could hang around a hospital, waiting, but that was callous and cruel and he wasn't that kind of person. Too, there was the fact that Mort didn't take care of every death personally any more than he was present for every winter snowstorm. So finding her would be a dice roll at best.

In the end, he just waited until the next time their paths crossed.

* * *

A few years after Jack had gotten his memories back, been sworn in as a Guardian, and finally, finally become visible to children, he met Death again.

It was a snowy winter in New York City, and he was whirling a skydance of snowflakes for the amusement of the children below, when he caught a glimpse of a long black cloak ruffling in the wind.

With a wave to the children (some of whom, judging by their return waves, saw him, and some of whom didn't), Jack set off, following Death.

He caught up with her at the Brooklyn Bridge, where he landed next to Mort atop the eastern tower. "Frost," she greeted him, pulling back the hood of her cloak to reveal skin as pale as his own, eyes so dark a brown as to be nearly black, and long straight chestnut hair. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, and underneath the cloak, he'd heard, dressed like a goth version of Stevie Nicks. But mostly she kept the cloak on. With the hood up, it apparently saved her on arguing with the dead.

"Mort," he replied, nodding. "Working?"

She smiled, but it was a curiously tight thing. "Always." She nodded at the bridge below. "Jumper, in about three minutes."

Jack loved his job. He'd never been quite sure how Mort felt about hers.

"Congratulations, by the way," she said. "Heard about your promotion."

Jack grinned and ducked his head a little. "Thanks."

She studied him. "You want something."

He straightened. "It's that obvious?"

Mort quirked an eyebrow at him. "Most people don't follow me unless they want something."

"You caught me." Jack sighed, leaning on his staff. "What happens to people after they die?"

"The shadowlands." Her face was calm.

"Is that like heaven, hell, purgatory...?"

Death shrugged. "Depends on the person, and what, deep down, they think they deserve in the afterlife. Some don't stay there long; they reincarnate. It's all in the state of mind, really."

Jack sighed again. "And if someone like me wanted to talk to someone there?"

"I got sick of people asking for that a couple thousand years ago, Frost." Her head tilted slightly. He wasn't sure if her expression was curious or calculating. "For you, though... I can arrange it. But it'll cost you."

Jack felt like grinning. "How much?"

"Not how much. _What_."

"Okay," Jack corrected himself, "what'll it cost me?"

Mort looked away, briefly scanning the bridge below for her scheduled jumper, then studied the chill gray waters of the Hudson Bay. "I'm sick of chess and gin rummy."

"Have you considered LARPs?" Jack offered.

She rolled her eyes, her irritation the clearest emotion Jack had ever been able to read off her. "Video games are popular these days. I want to try my hand at them."

Jack blinked.

"I can't exactly have a GameCube set up in the shadowlands," she snapped at him. "Electricity doesn't run to there."

"And you can't power it by...?" He waggled his fingers to mime _magic_.

"No. I've tried." She crossed her arms and looked away.

"Hmm." He leaned on his staff, thinking. _Jamie_ had a video game setup, and would probably let Jack borrow it for a good cause... "You won't kill a system just by touching it, will you?"

"Do you ice everything you touch?" she retorted. "Come on, Frost, you know we can keep it in check."

Jack shrugged. "I know I can. Didn't know if you were different."

"Mm." Her eyes locked onto a man in a shabby brown suit, wearing one of those fleece-lined hats with earflaps. "There he is."

Jack watched in silence as the man walked out to the middle span of the bridge, looked around furtively once or twice, and pulled something, a picture, from his jacket pocket. The man kissed the image, then reverently put it away again.

Jack looked away as the man climbed over the railing.

Mort tensed, then relaxed. Jack hadn't even heard a splash.

"He'll be all right now," she said, and tugged her hood back up. "I've got to go collect him, Frost."

"I'll see what I can set up," Jack said. "Got a way for me to contact you?"

Death hesitated, then tugged off one earring. It was a dangling silver spiderweb. She handed it to him. "Tap on it when you're ready. _Don't_ break it," she said, and was gone.

Jack stood on top of the tower for a minute longer, then tucked the earring into his hoodie pocket and flew off himself, trying not to think about winter plunges into icy water.

Buffalo was due for a good snowstorm.

* * *

Jamie, now fifteen, looked unimpressed by Jack's request. He sat at his desk chair, arms crossed, expression mulish.

"Oh, come on, I never ask you for anything!" Jack groaned.

"You do too. You ask me to ditch all the time, and sometimes you talk me into it, and then I get into trouble."

Okay, Jack had to concede that point. "Yeah, but it's worth it, right?"

Jamie unbent enough to grin. "Yeah, it is." He studied Jack's face, took a long breath, and sighed. "Tell me exactly why you want to borrow my PS4 - which, by the way, I spent six months saving up for - and this time, leave in all the long boring parts you usually try to skip."

"You sure? It's a _really_ long story."

"I'm sure."

Jack sighed and slumped into the window seat. Where to start? At the beginning, he guessed. "First off... you know I'm dead, right?"

Jamie straightened up, expression shocked. "_No_. You never mentioned _that_."

Jack sighed again, and blew his bangs up with a huff of air. "Long backstory short, I lived here in Burgess, about three hundred and, mm, ten years ago or so. Normal colonial kid, brown hair, brown eyes, normal parents, a little sister like Sophie. Except then she and I went skating on the pond in winter. And the ice wasn't quite thick enough." He hefted his staff momentarily. "I used this to get her to the thicker ice, then the pond broke under me. I drowned."

Jamie looked green. "In-"

Jack nodded. "In that pond, yeah."

"Oh, Christ." Jamie's head was in his hands.

Jack regarded him for a minute. "It was a long time ago, Jamie."

"That doesn't make it better!"

Jack ignored the pepperiness. "Anyway, a day or two later, the Man in the Moon pulled me up out of the ice and made me into what I am now." He fingered his bangs. "White hair and all."

"How the... how the hell are you so calm about this?!"

Jack looked levelly at the teenager. "It was over three hundred years ago, Jamie."

"Yeah, but-"

"I've seen your report cards. You don't care about much else that happened three hundred years ago. Why do you care about this?"

"Because I know you!" Jamie yelled, then looked away, face flushed.

Jack stood and knelt down in front of Jamie's chair. "Jamie." The teenager looked at him. "If it hadn't happened, you _wouldn't_ know me."

"That's... different," Jamie mumbled, but by his tone, he was at least taking Jack's point.

"So." Jack pushed to his feet and went back to the window. "I get reborn without a scrap of memory from my human life, spend three hundred some-odd years railing at the Moon for not telling me jack, and try to keep myself amused and from falling into the pit of despair. Then, one day, Manny decides the Guardians need some extra help, picks me, and you pretty much know the rest."

"Which is still not telling me why you want to borrow my gaming system."

Jack sighed, ran a hand through his hair, then stuffed it into his pocket. "Not having my memories for most of my life was probably a good thing. It would've killed me to watch my family grow old and die without ever seeing me. But now that I do remember? I want to see them again. Just to make sure they were happy, to make sure they were okay with what I became."

"Closure," Jamie said.

"Yeah."

Jamie hesitated, then spoke. "Um, Jack, if that was three hundred years ago, they're all dead."

Jack smiled slowly. "Did you know that Death runs around like I do?"

Jamie's eyes grew wide. "Jack..."

"Oh, it's okay." Jack waved off Jamie's worry. "She's cool. We've known each other for a long time. Thing is, though, I asked her. And she said she could let me see them again. But she wants something."

"My PS4?" Jamie looked downright skeptical.

"Well, not yours in particular. But... you've heard that Death plays games sometimes, right?"

Jamie nodded. "And if you win, she lets you live."

"She said she's sick of card games and chess. And she doesn't exactly have a plug for a game system in the shadowlands."

"North has electricity at the Pole," Jamie pointed out.

"The Pole is a real place. I think Mort's realm is another reality or something."

"So let me get this straight." Jamie ticked off his points on his fingers. "You want to see your family again. So you make a deal with Death. This deal involves the use of my PS4." He looked up. "This had better not be a scenario where I die if I lose a game, Jack."

"Cross my heart," Jack promised.

Jamie was still hesitant. "I dunno..."

"Jamie." Jack's voice was very quiet, and very serious. "What would you do, if it was your mom and Sophie that you'd never gotten to see again?"

Jamie was very quiet for a minute. "That's playing dirty, Jack." He took a breath. "But fine. Christmas break's next week; I can spend as much time showing her the ropes as she wants."

"Great!" Jack tackled Jamie in a hug.

"Jack!" After a minute, Jamie stopped flailing and hugged back. "Just don't ever say I never got you anything for Christmas."

* * *

**Author's Note:** This was originally part of the "Scenes From the Life and Death of Jackson Overland Frost" series, but it didn't quite mesh with the tone of that piece, so I took it out and made it into its own work. It's still in the same universe as Scenes, though. As for Death, I didn't want to borrow either Pratchett or Gaiman's versions, so I made up my own. I'm still pondering whether or not Mort has a younger brother named "Taxes." :) Unfortunately, I end up with the niggling suspicion that she may look like one of those people from the Twilight movie posters. Well, whatever. I also wanted to do a Jack-tells-Jamie-his-backstory thing, but most of the writers I've seen do so, set it only a year or so after the film. Ten or eleven, though really seems too young to find out your best friend/big brother drowned _in that pond you skate on all the time_...


	2. Deathly Destination

**Shadowlands  
Part 2: Deathly Destination**  
by K. Stonham  
first released 19th December, 2012

December, 2017

"You're doing WHAT?!" Bunnymund's shout echoed around the Warren. "Are you out of your frozen mind?!"

Jack unclasped his hands from over his ears. "You make it sound like a big deal," he complained.

Bunnymund pointed a boomerang at him. "You have no idea what you're getting yourself into. The shadowlands aren't _meant_ for living beings. Death hasn't let anyone in there for thousands of years."

"So she said. But I'm not exactly living, now am I?"

Bunnymund glared at him. Then he tucked away the boomerang, stalked forward, and grabbed Jack's arm. He roughly shoved the sleeve up and placed his fingers on the underside of Jack's wrist. After a moment he looked up, green eyes meeting Jack's blue. "You've got a pulse," he said quietly. "You may have _been_ dead, but you're not anymore."

"Oh." Jack felt disquieted for a moment. He'd long thought of himself as alive in a halfway sense, then, after getting his memories back, had assumed he was something closer to a ghost, but now... _Not important,_ he decided, brushing the matter off. "So why do you think this is a bad idea?" he asked.

Bunny stared at him for a minute, then threw up his hands and stalked away. "Why would he _ever_ have common sense?" the pooka implored no one in particular. "Why does he always have to poke at things that're better left alone?"

"I _asked_ why you're saying it's a bad idea," Jack snapped in response, standing. "If you're not going to tell me, I can just leave-"

Bunny whirled back toward him. "Don't. You. Dare."

Jack sat back down, waiting, as Bunnymund stalked back toward him.

"Do you know _anything_ about the shadowlands?" Bunnymund asked.

"Mort said people there pretty much live in whatever scenario they think they deserve," Jack offered. Which kind of worried him, because he didn't know what his family thought they deserved. Singing hosannas at the feet of God, maybe? Seemed boring to Jack, but then, his afterlife would probably be pretty different anyway...

Bunnymund huffed. "For living beings, the shadowlands are a trap," he said. "It'll be very pretty, and very pleasant, and it'll make you want to _stay_, Frostbite."

Jack shook his head. "I don't want to stay. I just want to visit."

"Keep that in mind when you get there," Bunnymund warned. "The place has rules, like anywhere else. Don't eat anything. Don't drink anything. And don't try to take anything with you when you leave. You break those rules, you _can't_ leave. Ever."

Jack nodded.

"And please tell me you're telling someone about this cockeyed plan of yours."

"I'm telling you."

Bunnymund stared at Jack for a minute, then groaned, falling backward onto the soft grass. "Why me?" he asked no one in particular again.

Jack hopped off his stone and walked over to the rabbit. "North would have a fit. Tooth would have a bigger fit. And Sandy just plain wouldn't even let me try."

"Why is this so important to you?" Bunnymund asked.

Jack drew a soft breath and let it go again before answering. "They're my family. I just want to know that they were okay - that they _are_ okay."

"Family, huh?" Bunnymund stared up at the high high ceiling of the Warren for a long minute. Then he too sighed. "Fine, Frostbite. I won't tell the others. But you don't come popping back in by Christmas, and I _will_ tell them. We'll storm the ruddy place if we have to, and you will spend eternity regretting your stupidity. Understand?"

"Understood."

* * *

"Ready?" Jack asked.

Still looking nervous, Jamie nonetheless managed a shrug. "As I'll ever be."

"Okay, let's do this thing." Jack pulled the silver earring out of his hoodie pocket and drummed his fingers on the web.

"You're _sure_ this isn't going to kill me?" Jamie asked one last time.

"Positive."

A groan from outside the window startled both of them. "Please don't tell me that stupid school of thought hasn't died a painful death yet."

"Hey, Mort." Jack pulled the window open, and Death clambered inside. She pushed back the hood of her cloak and looked around Jamie's room curiously, her eyes landing last on the boy himself. "Mort, this is my friend Jamie Bennett. Jamie, Mort, otherwise known as Death."

"Um, hi," Jamie said. Then, "What stupid school of thought?"

"I don't kill people," Mort said. "That usually happens on its own. I just make sure they go where they're supposed to, afterward."

"'Usually'." Jamie focused on that one word.

"Okay, _sometimes_ I kill them. When they're holding on way past their time and screwing up my schedule. Otherwise?" She shrugged. "Lemme see, by the way." She grabbed Jamie's left hand and turned it palm-side up. A fingernail, painted lavender, traced along a fold in the skin. "Long lifeline. You're good."

"Wait, palmistry works?" Jack asked, eyebrows high.

"If you're me, or a human with the gift, sure." Mort smirked. "Ninety-nine out of a hundred fortunetellers don't have the gift. So," she said brightly, "what do you have for me, Frost?"

"Use of my PS4," Jamie replied. "And I've got a week free from school if you want to run Rainbow Quest in two-player mode."

Mort's eyebrows raised high. "And what does Frost owe _you_ for this, Jamie Bennett?"

Jamie's eyes met Jack's. He smiled slightly. "Absolutely nothing."

Dark eyes flickered back and forth, examining the two, before finally coming back to settle on Jamie. "Oh, you're _that_ one."

"That one?" Jamie asked blankly.

"That one?" Jack asked equally blankly.

Death smiled, and it was a dark study in pleasure. "Let's just say you're not unknown," she told Jamie. "Now, Rainbow Quest?"

Jamie looked warily at Jack, as if wondering what rumors might be spreading in the immortal community, then shrugged and walked over to his small gaming center. He knelt, pulling out a handful of games. "I have Rainbow Quests seven through thirteen. Which one do you want to start with?"

Mort perched on the edge of his bed. "Which one do you recommend?"

"Well, thirteen's the newest, but eleven's my favorite. It has the best story."

"Eleven it is."

"Jack said you'd never used a PS4 before, right?" Jamie fished out a pair of controllers. He handed one to Mort. "There's a tutorial first, so we can run through that so you can get the hang of it."

"Sweet." She rocked the controller back and forth in her hands, then looked at Jack. "Did you want to do your little visit now or later, Frost?"

"Um."

"Go for now," Jamie advised. "I've only got two controllers and you've played eleven with me already anyway. And that way you can be back by Christmas." He bit his lip. "Unless you wanted to spend Christmas with them."

"Do the dead even have Christmas?" Jack asked Mort.

She shrugged. "The shadowlands calendar drifts. It hasn't lined up with Earth's for a long time."

"Right. I... guess I'll go now."

"Keep my earring with you," Mort said. "It's your passage token. To get there, go jump in that pool you drowned in. To get back out, the same. Do you know the rules?"

"No eating, no drinking, no trying to take anything out with me," Jack listed. "Anything else?"

Dark eyes studied him. "Don't stay too long," Death advised. "The longer you stay, the harder it is to come back."

* * *

Jack stood on the shore of the pond. It was frozen over, with a couple of thin-ice warning signs posted around the edge. The Burgess kids had been in the habit of ignoring those for several years now, completely due to Jack's presence.

He really, really did not want to break the ice and dive in.

It had been late morning when he'd left Jamie's house. Jack had done a fast lap of the globe, stirring up a few small storms. He'd caught up with Sandman along the way. He'd dropped in briefly at the Pole to perch in the rafters, snickering at the last-minute chaos. He'd visited the Tooth Palace, flirting with Tooth and her fairies until she flushed and they swooned. And he'd finally hit the Warren, to warn Bunnymund of his intentions.

"Having second thoughts?" the pooka asked him now, having accompanied Jack surface-side. It was night in Burgess, and the park was clear of stragglers.

Jack turned the earring over and over in his hand. "Just remembering drowning."

"Hey." A furry gray hand landed on his shoulder. "You're immortal now. You can't drown, Frostbite."

"Doesn't make nerving myself up any easier." Jack took a deep breath. His fist clenched around the talisman. "Right. I'm going to do this."

"You don't have to, mate."

Jack looked Bunnymund in the eye. "If it was your family, wouldn't you?"

Bunny looked away. He sighed a long, regretful sigh. "My family's long gone, Frostbite. Leaving them in peace is only thing I can do."

_...Oh._

"Sor-" Jack started to say, but Bunny cut him off.

"Long gone," he repeated. "No use in stirring up old ghosts anymore. But my family isn't your family, and I'm not you. If you need to do this, Jack... I'm behind you."

"Thanks," Jack murmured.

He steadied himself, took a breath, and walked out onto the ice. It was thick beneath his feet, solid. Like it hadn't been that day.

He remembered where he'd been when the ice broke. He walked there now, stood just before the spot.

Jack frowned, clenched his hand tight around Death's talisman.

Raising his staff, he slammed its butt against the ice, shattering it.

Before he could have second thoughts, Jack jumped in.

* * *

**Author's Note:** ...I am just picturing Jamie spending his entire winter break playing various of the Rainbow Quest games with Mort. And his mom coming in with some snacks for him, and never noticing the second controller, on his far side, floating in the air. Mort's full name is in fact Morticia, BTW, and I'm trying hard not to have her be too Mary Sue-ish. Unfortunately, Death as an embodied character always seems to be a bit of a scene-stealer.


	3. Deathly Discussions

**Shadowlands  
Part 3: Deathly Discussions**  
by K. Stonham  
first released 22nd December, 2012

He swam for the surface, staff clenched in one hand, earring in the other. It seemed an incredible distance away. It seemed to take forever. It seemed -

Jack's head broke the surface, and he gasped for air.

Clear blue skies greeted him, the midday sun shining down on the pond.

Kicking into the air, Jack froze the water still on him, shook it off with a familiar crackling. It fell into the pond and melted quickly.

Looking around, he was amazed at all the deep, lush greenery. It was like the Warren -

No.

It was _summer_ here.

And Jack hadn't been welcome in summer in a very long time.

His breath frosted in the air as he fought not to panic and bolt north. This was the shadowlands, it wasn't Earth, there wouldn't be any summer spirits here to take umbrage.

He had Death's _token_. He was _allowed_ here.

Forcing down the panic, Jack looked down at the green depths below him, examining his reflection on the pond's surface. Still white-haired and blue-eyed. He breathed a sigh of relief, and stuffed Mort's earring into his pocket.

He let the whispering summer breezes (lazy little things, nothing like winter's gusts) push him above the trees. He cast about to get his bearings, and -

His mouth dropped open.

Except for it being in summer rather than winter, he _remembered_ this view.

It was Burgess, as he'd known it in life.

Swallowing, Jack let the breezes take him home.

* * *

Burgess was... well, not quite how Jack remembered it. There were more houses. And he flew over some fields that he _definitely_ didn't remember. He hid high up in the trees for a bit, watching. The people he saw looked familiar, some of them. Others he didn't recognize, except... that man looked sort of like his friend Adam. And that woman could have been Mary's older sister, except Mary had never had a sister.

Shaking off the not-quite-deja-vu, Jack finally landed silently on the ground and crept into the village. He stuck to the shadows; no one saw him. But that was his house there, _that one_, and he could see heat shimmers and a wisp of smoke coming from the chimney. The door was wide open, letting in the summer light and air.

Taking a deep breath, steeling himself, Jack stepped into the doorway.

He couldn't breathe.

That was his _mother_ there, bending over the pot just slightly off the fire. He could smell her bread baking, filling the house with warmth and that indefinable sense he now realized meant _home_ to him.

"You're in early from the fields, Thomas -" she said, straightening and turning. She stopped cold when she saw Jack in the doorway.

Her mouth hung open. She looked, Jack thought, like she'd seen a ghost.

He swallowed against the tightness in his throat. "Hello, Mother," he said, and was surprised his voice didn't crack with the strain.

"...Jack?" she whispered.

He didn't know what to say, so he just nodded.

There wasn't ten feet between them, but somehow she ran it. Her arms closed tight around him. "Jack!"

Slowly, awkwardly, Jack returned the embrace. Then his eyes closed and his hands clenched in the fabric of her dress. He never, ever thought he'd be hugged by his mother again.

"I'm home," he said hoarsely.

She pulled back and looked at him, her brown eyes watering. And her voice was as hoarse as his own when Anne Frost asked, "Jack, what are you doing here?"

* * *

He sat down at the table that he hadn't sat at in over three hundred years. And, God, it was exactly the same. There was the scar he'd left on it when he was twelve, playing with his new penny knife. He remembered getting whipped for that. His staff was caught between his feet, leaned against his shoulder. He didn't dare let go of it now. This was too strange, too familiar. Maybe coming here wasn't a good idea -

His mother sat down opposite him, reached across the table, and took his hands in her own. He could only look at the contrast. His skin was so deathly pale against her summer-warmed color. And yet, if Bunnymund was to be believed, Jack was the one who was still alive.

"I'm sorry," he said, and it felt like he was apologizing for everything and nothing. "If I'd been more careful that day. If I'd checked the ice... if I'd thought to _lie down_ and spread out our weight..."

His mother squeezed his hands. "You did the best you could. And I am so very proud of what you did that day, and what you're doing now."

He stared. "You know about that?"

Anne nodded. "We can see through the veil, sometimes. When it's All Saint's Day in the living world, those of us who still have loved ones there can look in mirrors or glass, and see them." Her hands tightened on his again. "Though I would never have wished three hundred years of winter for you."

That confused Jack for a minute, because what was there not to love about winter? He'd _been_ part of winter for so long that his memories of the other seasons were hazy at best. His strongest impressions of spring and summer came from visiting the Warren and the Tooth Palace, and autumn was just that messy passing thing that gave him colored leaves to decorate in beautiful clean frost.

He honestly forgot, most of the time, that other people didn't love his season as well as he did. To his family, though, winter was a time of cold and carefully measuring out stored food, hoping it would last until the first spring crops. It was a time of worrying about hunger and sickness.

Of all the seasons for him to be caught in, Jack realized, his family would view winter as the worst.

Even if nothing else, it had the sin of being the season they lost him.

"Father is out in the fields?" he asked, changing the subject away from things they could not agree on.

His mother nodded. "He'll be coming in soon for dinner. You _will_ stay, won't you?" Her expression was pleading.

Jack smiled. "Of course I will."

* * *

Laying his staff atop his old bed, Jack helped his mother prepare the meal, setting the table for three. "Where is Pippa?" he asked.

"At her work," his mother replied. "We'll go visit her after dinner, if you'd like."

Jack blinked. "She's not coming here for dinner?"

"No, she dines with her husband -" His mother caught sigh of Jack's expression and stopped. "Jack, she grew up and married."

"Oh." He took a moment, the knowledge whirling up, settling into new shapes. "I - I'm glad. I just, I only remember her as a ten-year-old."

"Oh, Jack." Anne set the plates down on the table and moved to hug him again. "I'm sorry. This must be so strange to you."

He took a breath, centering himself. "How does this place even work? Mort, I mean Death, said that everyone ends up where they subconsciously think they belong."

"Well, from my point of view, this is the time in my life when I was happiest." His mother smiled at him, and Jack really _looked_ at her for the first time.

His mother looked so young. Part of it, he realized, was not being careworn from worry over harvests and injuries. But part of it was that she looked as she had a year or two before he died. "Pippa wasn't happy as a child," he realized, speaking the thought aloud. "Because I died, and... tell me she didn't blame herself for that."

Anne's mouth thinned and she shook her head. "She was ten, Jack. Of course she did."

"I need to talk with her," Jack decided.

"_After_ dinner," his mother insisted.

He nodded. "Of course," and slipped the third plate from the stack when she turned to pick it up.

"What are you doing with that?" his mother asked, a laugh in her voice.

Jack put the place back atop the cupboard. "Don't waste the food on me," he said.

"But, Jack -"

He took a breath. "I'm not here to stay, Mother. I'm just here to visit for a bit. And that means I can't eat or drink anything, if I want to go back."

His mother slowly set the plates back on the table and reached for his arm. He let her, knowing what she was looking for.

"You still have a pulse," she said quietly, fingers against the underside of his wrist. Her eyes were wet with unshed tears when she looked back up at him. "I'd thought... I thought you'd finally come home to stay with us, Jack."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I can't, not yet. I have so many responsibilities in the other world. I can't just lay them down. And there are people there..." _Who would miss me,_ the words dried up in his throat, because five years on, he _still_ wasn't used to that.

Anne brushed at her eyes. "I know. It's so silly of me. What mother wishes their child dead? But when we came here, it was such a shock not to find you. And then when the mirrors let us see you, that first time, we almost didn't recognize you, didn't understand..."

"Heh." Jack fingered at his white hair. "I guess this must look pretty strange, from your point of view. For me, though... this was all I knew, for three hundred years. I didn't even remember I had a human life until pretty recently."

His mother stood still. "_That_ explains certain of your reprehensible behaviors I witnessed."

Jack winced. "I'm sorry?"

She sighed. "Well, it's over and done with. Now, help me dish up."

* * *

Thomas Frost arrived just as Anne was setting the second plate on the table. He looked taken aback to find a white-haired stranger in his home. Then, after a moment, his face cleared. "Jackson?" he whispered incredulously.

Jack managed a smile. "Hello, Father," he said, his voice almost as tremulous as it was when he'd greeted his mother.

He was caught up and almost crushed in a bear hug. His father had never seemed that physically imposing, but he'd worked with his hands all his life, felling trees, ploughing and planting fields, building this very house. Relaxing into the hug, returning it, Jack gained sudden insight into why North's imposing strength made him feel safe.

His fingers tightened on his father's shirt. "I've missed you," he whispered.


	4. Deathly Debut

**Shadowlands  
Part 4: Deathly Debut**  
by K. Stonham  
first released 29th December, 2012

"You don't _need_ to go back to the fields, Thomas," Anne Frost told her husband. Her gaze slid sideways, to their son, sitting at the table looking amused at the discussion. The white hair and blue eyes were unnerving, but the small smirk was one she'd seen on Jackson's face any number of times, and that soothed her.

"If I don't -"

"He can't stay," Anne hissed. "And God only knows how long it will be before we see him again."

That gave her husband pause. "You're... not staying?" he asked Jack.

Jack pushed up from his seat. There was sorrow writ across his face, but he shook his head, resolute. "I can't, Father. I'm a Guardian, in the living world. I protect children. I can't just let that go."

"But you came to us -"

"I came to make sure you were all right," Jack replied, and, oh, he might look like a child, but in that instant Anne saw how much of a man her boy had become. And she felt so very proud. "I came to let you know I was all right. But I did not come to stay."

Thomas swallowed, then bowed his head, accepting. He took a breath. "A day or two amiss shouldn't hurt," he said. "I'll ask Master Rowling to keep an eye on things for me."

Anne beamed up at him.

"So," her husband said, forcing a smile, "shall we go visit your sister, and introduce you to her family? They've only ever heard stories of their uncle Jackson."

A much more delighted smile broke out on Jack's face. "I'd love to," he said, and went to fetch his staff.

"You can leave that here," Anne told him. "It won't be stolen - the village is safe."

Jack shook his head. "This has only left me once in three hundred years." His face darkened; she wondered, but feared to know, what memory was involved. But then he shook the darkness off. "It's a part of me, Mother, like my hand or my heart. I can't, and won't, let it go again."

"Well, then," she said, fetching her summer bonnet off its hook, "shall we go visiting?"

* * *

Burgess was definitely bigger than Jack remembered, and livelier. Children ran around laughing, or sat by their doors, or on logs, doing small handwork. A waft of heat and the clanging of metal-on-metal came from the smithy. And everywhere, everywhere, people went about their business.

Most didn't notice him, or paid him the scarcest attention. A few, though, paused. He wondered if his white hair was catching their notice. But then he heard, "Jackson?"

Stopping, he turned. A man, taller than Jack by half a head, with a neatly trimmed black beard, stood looking at him, surprise writ large across his face. "Yes...?" Jack asked, not knowing the other.

That got him a delighted laugh and a great hug that made him stiffen. "By God, it is you! Welcome home!" Drawing back, the stranger grinned at him, and some shift of the light or his features let Jack recognize him.

"Stanley?" he demanded, eyes wide. "You... you grew up!"

"Died in my sixties," the man reported proudly, though he didn't look above thirty. "Look at you! Not a day over eighteen! Where have you been? And why, pray tell, is your hair that color?"

"I've... I've been on Earth," Jack replied. "I got drafted." There was a blank look at that expression. He amended it to, "Someone pulled me out of that pond and turned me into a spirit. I take care of winter." There was no need to go into an explanation of the Man in the Moon. Particularly not with Stanley, who had always been far more Biblically inclined than Jack.

"Winter, you say?" Stanley asked, not seeming to have a problem with the concept. "Well, that would give explanation to your hair and eye colors."

"We're just going to visit Phillipa, Master Pritchard," Jack's father said. "Care to walk with us?"

Stanley looked in the opposite direction, then shrugged and fell in beside Jack. "Of course. I wouldn't miss this story for anything."

"There's not much to tell," Jack said, shrugging himself. "I bring winter, and try to get kids to have fun."

Stanley looked skeptical, and boy was that an expression Jack remembered. He opened his mouth to tease his old friend about his face getting stuck that way, when suddenly there was a woman running into the center square. She dragged a little girl by the hand, and the skirt of her dress was smouldering. "Fire!" she cried.

Jack called for the wind almost before his father and Stanley yelled "Buckets!" and "Water!", their voices overlapping one another.

The burning house, Jack saw from the air, was not at the center of town. But it was close, only the next row over, and as Jack watched, flames licked up out of its mud-daub chimney. They spread onto the roof.

It was summer here, and his powers had never had much effect against fire. But Jack had spent three centuries watching, and learning. Like a man, a fire needed two things to live. Food, and breath.

He couldn't do much to its breath except call the wind, and that would only spread the flames farther. But its food...

Jack dropped into a crouch on the far end of the house's roof. He took a breath, concentrating, then stood. Holding his staff in both hands, he slammed it to the shingles.

Ice crackled out, shooting across the roof, down the chimney, inside and out, encasing everything in a quarter-inch-thick ice sheet.

The fire hesitated, guttered, then died.

Jack couldn't help the icicles now dangling from the building's eaves, or whatever water damage the melting ice might cause. But the house itself was intact, and eventually only a few scorch marks would indicate its near-burning.

There was silence below him. Suddenly remembering his audience, Jack whirled, looking down. The adults could see him, how could he forget and be so obvious, _they could see him_ -

His mother's face was a study in pride. As was his father's. Stanley was staring wide-eyed, but then he broke into a broad grin. "Jackson Frost indeed!" he called, laughing. "More like Jackson Ice!"

And then, like the villagers suddenly all realized who Jack was, they were all clapping and cheering Jack's name.

It was a disconcerting feeling, and even more discomforting when Jack realized that he wanted to hide. For all that he had spent centuries wanting _anyone_ to look at him, he didn't want _everyone_ looking at him. But he couldn't hide, not here, and he couldn't fly away without seeing Pippa, he just _couldn't_. So he steeled himself, and let the wind carry him back down to the ground, where the crowd of people were waiting for him.

* * *

Phillipa Austen sat at her loom, humming contentedly as she passed her shuttle through the weft threads, battened the fill, then passed the shuttle back through to her right hand. The wool cloth taking shape under her hands was warm and soft and the loveliest shade of cream. Properly dyed and fulled, it would make a winter dress.

Behind her, sitting at her spinning, Elizabeth, her eldest daughter, took up the thread of Phillipa's notes and wove them into a nonsense song. It was a fun little ditty, full of clever rhymes and an increasingly silly storyline, when it suddenly broke off into "Grandmother! Grandfather!" and the sound of the spinning wheel stopped.

Battening down the cloth one last time, Phillipa set down her shuttle and turned.

And stopped.

A young man stood in the doorway with her parents and daughter. He was staring at Phillipa like she was the last breath of hope he had before -

Her breath quickened.

_Before falling through ice,_ she made herself finish the thought, and it couldn't be him, it absolutely couldn't, he was in the living world -

"Pippa?" her brother asked, and something old and half-healed inside Phillipa Frost Austen broke. Shattered. Like pond ice.

"Jack?" she whispered, and she was ten again, running into his arms, crying. His arms wrapped around her, and he was crying too. And if his tears were cold, instead of hot, where they fell on her and soaked through her dress, she didn't notice.

Phillipa Frost had her brother back, and that was all that mattered.

* * *

"It's okay," Jack murmured to his sister. "It's okay, Pippa."

She looked up at him, brown eyes teary, and how weird was it that she was ten again when just a minute ago she'd been in her thirties? Time was apparently malleable in this place, and Mort really ought to put a warning label about that on it.

"You fell in -" his sister snuffled, and for the moment, Jack ignored their parents, and Stanley, and that girl who had to be Pippa's own daughter.

He knelt, making her taller than him. "I fell in," he agreed, his hands on her upper arms. "And that wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. It just happened." Pippa sniffed again, and he dredged up a smile for her. "I'm not going to deny that it hurt, Pips. Drowning's not the best way to go. But you know what? I got a second chance, a new life, from what happened that day."

"What happened?"

Jack smiled at her, glanced a smile up to his parents as well. "There's a Man in the Moon, did you know that? And he really likes people who protect children. So he pulled me up out of that ice and gave me all the powers of winter, so that I could keep doing for other kids what I did for you." Jack held his hand open before his sister.

A snowflake, delicate and ethereal, formed on his palm. He solidified it, hardened it, and with that little twist of magic he'd learned from North, changed it so it would never melt. Wide brown eyes stared at Jack as he took Pippa's hand, turned it palm side up as well, and gave her the snowflake.

"It's... cold."

"Winter usually is. But it can be beautiful, too, and a lot of fun. You remember that, don't you?"

There was growing maturity in her eyes now, and Jack stood as his sister changed again, back to the woman she'd been when he entered the room. Her face was different, looking very like their mother's, and she was just a little taller than Jack himself. But her eyes were the same. Jack would have known her anywhere.

Pippa held the snowflake to her heart. "I remember," she said.


	5. Deathly Decision

**Shadowlands  
Part 5: Deathly Decision**  
by K. Stonham  
first released 25th April, 2013

Jack woke, for the first time in several centuries, in a bed. In his own bed. In his own home.

It was decidedly surreal.

Listening to the pre-dawn world outside the house (birds, horses, a faint high whistling of wind heard through the chimney) and inside the house (a soft creaking of the bed frame in his parents' room as one of them turned over in their sleep), he lay there for a minute, trying to get his bearings. Trying to decide how he felt about this. About being home again.

His feelings, Jack ended up concluding, were mixed. This was all so familiar, so comfortable, something he thought he'd never experience again. Yet at the same time, there was something jarring and discordant about it. It felt like... like trying to put on a favorite shirt that he'd outgrown. It was too tight, too constricting.

He wasn't this Jack Frost anymore. He wasn't a colonial boy. He was the spirit of winter, and a Guardian.

And he had no idea how to tell his family that.

His parents had their life here, with their friends and family. A life that had, for nearly two hundred and fifty years, not included him. They loved him, he had no doubt, and would welcome him here, fold him into their life with open arms, but... they didn't _need_ him.

And Pippa... his sister was grown, with a home of her own, and a husband, and seven children, four of whom had survived to adulthood and married, with families of _their_ own. One of her sons had moved to Boston and apparently been a prominent lawyer there. Before he'd been killed by British soldiers during the war.

But here, in this place, Jack's nephew was alive. As were his children, and their children, and their children, generations piling up on generations until the current day.

The afterlife, Jack was coming to understand, was like the layers of an onion, or the stacked pages of paper in a book. It was different for everyone. You ended up in the time you were happiest, surrounded by the people you loved best, doing the work you had enjoyed most. And everyone else ended up with the same, so though they overlapped, no two afterlives were completely identical. Each held just enough challenge to make existence worthwhile, but none of the bad stuff. There were things that could hurt you, yes. A falling tree could crush you, and you'd be injured. But you would eventually heal. Nothing here could kill you, could take you away from your pain forever, because here, no pain ran that deep.

It kind of blew his mind, and kind of made him uneasy.

Quietly, Jack pushed aside his frosted blanket, and stood, grabbing his staff. He snuck out the front door and let the wind carry him to the roof of his family's home. He sat there, on its peak, and watched the sun rise over colonial Burgess, thinking.

* * *

"No, left, left!" Mort shouted, trying to steer her riderbird through volume as well as well as the controller. It worked as well for her as it ever did for Jamie; he laughed as she bounced off the canyon wall on the right of the screen and he overtook her. She growled, thumbs mashing frantically until she caught up with him just before they both crossed the finish line.

"Yes!" Mort threw her arms in the air. "Number one! Finally!"

The hopper on the screen informed them that Mort had won a Magic Feather, and would they like to race again Y/N?

"We've got enough feathers now to trade for the magic carpet," Jamie said.

"That gets us to Argyar, right?"

"Yeah. Where we pick up our last party member."

"Right. So what's he like?"

"_She,_" Jamie emphasized the gender, "is kick-ass. Nadalia is a warrior priestess who can drink any of the other characters under the tavern table."

"Do I sense a little crush, Bennett?"

"Ha. As if." Jamie would never, ever admit to Mort about scanning the internet for pictures of Nadalia cosplayers. Jack teasing him about it was bad enough.

Jamie glanced away from the television for a moment, looking at his window.

It had been two days. He wondered how Jack was doing. And when he'd be back.

* * *

Phillipa spent the day out in the sunshine, in the company of her brother. Her hands kept busy with a drop spindle, as did all three of her daughters'. They, and what seemed like half of Burgess' children and no few of the adults, sat in a circle around her brother as he held storyteller's court. Hands kept industrious while minds were taken on flights of fancy.

It was, Phillipa thought with a smile, entirely nostalgic.

"Now, this fellow," Jack said, creating a new ice sculpture in one hand, "is the Easter Bunny." His brow furrowed momentarily, in a way that Phillipa had already come to realize meant he was hardening the ice, making it unmelting. As soon as he was done, he handed it off to the nearest child, Jeremiah Collins, who hastily set aside his whittling to accept the figurine and examine it before passing it around.

"Papa said you caught the Easter Bunny once," Sarah Pritchard said, clearly doubtful.

Jack grinned at her. "Oh, he told you that, did he?" Sarah nodded. "Well, that's the absolute truth, and Aster - the Easter Bunny's full name is E. Aster Bunnymund, but I haven't found out yet what the 'E' is for - has fallen for the exact same snare at least once since." Jack grinned. "Thus proving that you can't beat a classic slip snare, no matter how smart your opponent thinks he is.

"Now, Bunny," Jack continued, nodding at the ice statue as it made its way around, "is faster than just about anyone. And he's not afraid of any kind of height. But he _hates_ flying, so unless he gets distracted, he ends up leaving claw marks on North's sleigh..."

Her brother, Phillipa came to realize as Jack talked on, telling the village children about the adventures of his comrades-in-arms, had covered nearly all of the Guardians. He had talked about the Tooth Fairy and one of her little helpers whom Jack had named Baby Tooth; he had described a curious little man named the Sandman; his voice had contained a touch of hero worship as he discussed Nicholas St. North, who was the same as Sinterklaas; and now, he convulsed his listeners with laughter as he told them of the idiosyncracies of the man-beast called the Easter Bunny. The only one of the Guardians whose exploits Jack had not detailed was himself, Jack Frost the winter-bringer.

She had a feeling she knew why.

Her fingers tangled in the growing thread, and Phillipa momentarily lost the train of her brother's story. But she forced herself to straighten and focus again.

Jack wasn't staying, and wanted to give the village children new stories to retell over long winter nights, ones that did not involve the bringer of winter himself. Ones that did not involve a playmate who would not stay to play.

In a way, she admired him for it. Yet at the same time, Phillipa wished she didn't understand him so well. Why did he love the children of that other world better than his own blood kin? Burgess was his _home_. He belonged here, with them. Why would he not simply stay here?

"And this," Jack said with another grin, crafting another ice figure, "is Jamie Bennett. Who, like all of you, is from Burgess. And he's mortal, so maybe someday you'll get to meet him. He's the bravest kid I've ever met, and has absolutely no fear of the Boogeyman. But the Boogeyman, you see, has a healthy fear of Jamie. Because anyone who's not scared, and who can get others to not be scared with him, can stand up to darkness and turn it into light..."

* * *

That second night, as they walked side-by-side from her house to their parents', Pippa said something Jack had never expected from her. "Why do you love them better than us?" she asked.

Jack blinked at the soft question. "Love who better?"

"The mortal children."

Jack stopped walking, surprised. "Better?" he asked. He shook his head. "I don't love them better, Pips. I just love them different."

"Then why won't you stay?" She turned and looked at him, her expression pleading. "You could be happy here, Jack! Our whole family could be back together again."

Jack took in her expression, sighed, and looked away. He remembered what his mother had told him about Pippa blaming herself for his death. Apparently it was something she still hadn't let go of. Not even with him here for a visit. "Pippa, you don't _need_ me here. Jamie and the other mortal kids... they do. They need someone to make the ice strong enough, keep the storms survivable. They need someone to protect them from the things in the shadows."

"Do you love him better than me?" she demanded, face angry. "Your Jamie? Is that why you won't stay?"

Jack stared, incredulous. She thought he loved Jamie more than he loved her? "No! Of course I don't. You're my sister. But he's like my brother. I know Jamie's going to grow up someday soon, and forget about me. And that's going to hurt. But just because children grow up and stop needing Guardians doesn't mean they don't deserve protection before then. He needs my protection. You don't."

"But I do need you! Jack, this work is going to kill you eventually. Isn't that what you said happened to Katherine and Nightlight? Isn't dying for someone else once already enough?"

Jack just stood there open-mouthed for a minute, looking at his sister. Slowly, he closed his mouth. "I remember you getting like this before," he said quietly. "I remember after the Turners moved into town, you got so mad at me for looking after little Lizzy while her mother was sick and her father was away. Remember that, Pippa?"

His sister shut her mouth and looked away, expression mulish.

"You are my sister," Jack said, "and I love you very much. But I don't tell you that you married the wrong man, or made some questionable choices in your life, and you do not get to tell me that what I do, what I love, is not what I should be doing. Do you understand that, Pippa?"

She didn't answer his question. Instead, she asked plaintively, "Why can't you just stay?"

He felt his voice harden. He really didn't want to do this, but he could see that he was not getting through to her. "I died for you once, Pips. And I do not regret that for a second, because you grew up to be a fine, upstanding woman, with a wonderful family around you. But you do not get to tell me to die for you again."

Her head snapped around to stare at him, shocked.

"Dying again is the only way I stay here, Pippa," Jack said quietly, "and I have unfinished business in the living world, people I still need and want to live for. They need me there, and, as someone once said, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. I refuse to take the easy way out, and do nothing. If I die again fighting the good fight, so be it." He paused, to see if she had any response to give, but she did not. "I'll be leaving after the picnic tomorrow afternoon. What's left between us at that point is up to you."

Turning away, Jack let the wind carry him home, leaving his sister standing in the street behind him.

* * *

**Author's Note:** The Rainbow Quest gameplay was in no way inspired by watching others play the chocobo racing minigame in FFX. Really. It wasn't. :) And, sorry for taking so long to get back to this. I was stumped on what needed to happen until I just started sledgehammering my way through the words and realized halfway through that Pippa was not too happy about Jack leaving her again. I know that she's usually portrayed as his sweet, beloved younger sister, but real people are more complex than that, and she had a whole life (and afterlife) during which she grew and changed. Jack's sacrifice made a big impression on her, and shaded her entire life. Her point is understandable; she just wants her brother back.


End file.
